tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Putnam and other ongoing competitions)

geraldedgar comments on "Putnam and other ongoing competitions" (17420)

geraldedgar — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 05:47:10 -0800

The Putnam is now complete, so all questions may be posted and discussed. This year we had only that one "leak" here, as far as I noticed.

darijgrinberg comments on "Putnam and other ongoing competitions" (17417)

darijgrinberg — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 20:34:03 -0800

Until now I even had no idea that Putnam had a floating time frame. Being a moderator on AoPS I might have failed to hide certain topics, or even dismissed complaints as being unfounded...

To some extent I think it is the responsibilty of the competition organizers to let the rules be widely known; when I hear that a certain problem is from an ongoing competition, I want to know (1) the website of the competition, (2) when it is fair game to discuss it (= when the competition has ended), (3) all the other problems of that competition (in order to keep watch for people posting them).

fedja comments on "Putnam and other ongoing competitions" (17411)

fedja — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 15:31:21 -0800

This is just a request for moderator control over ongoing math. competition related posts. Please, be aware that some of them like Putnam have several alternative times to accommodate for religious observances and such and, while it is impossible to prevent all leaks of information, it would be highly desirable at least to make sure that the problems themselves, not to say their solutions, do not appear on major math. sites like AoPS, MO, and MSE. AoPS has a very strict policy about it and it would be nice to implement it here as well. Of course, once the competition ends everywhere and for everyone (it is Sunday 5PM Pacific time for Putnam), the discussions are welcome all over the web :).

Alas, this year we've got one such untimely post already: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/82648/truncated-exponential-series-modulo-p-deeper-meaning-for-a-putnam-question